Cacioppo, 47, lives at High Meadows, a mobile home park in the Town of Dover. She and other residents say they have been dealing with high levels of iron and manganese in their water for years. They say the concentrations can get so high, the water emerges from the faucet black.

Complicating matters: The water is provided by a private company, High Meadows Park Inc., which is owned cooperatively by each of the park's roughly 200 property owners.

Jody Cacioppo, 47, lives at High Meadows, a mobile home park in the Town of Dover. She and other residents say they have been dealing with high levels of iron and manganese in their water for years now.
Chrissie Williams

The cost of any system upgrade would be borne by residents of this community of modest means. The system serves about 500 people, according to its 2012 annual water quality report.

Cacioppo has been embroiled in legal battles with her water company over unpaid fees.

"I have been here 24 years," she said. "My home is paid off. I want to get out. I want to sell. I can't because of the water."

Representatives of the board that oversees the water company declined comment, citing the pending litigation. Their lawyer, Jon Adams of Poughkeepsie, said tests show the system is performing largely as it should.

"We have been testing like crazy, and we haven't found any deficiency," Adams said. "There may be isolated ones. She is the only person in the park who has made this claim."

High Meadows is another in a number of areas in Dutchess County that have had recent problems with drinking water.

In November 2012, the Journal reported that salt levels in the wells of about a dozen Hopewell Junction homes were dangerously high. In 2013, problems arose with disinfection byproducts in Hyde Park and East Fishkill, radium in a Beekman development and E. coli bacteria in the City of Poughkeepsie.

Though Cacioppo is the only one who has taken legal action, other residents say they have the same issues.

Resident Marlene Dietrich said she had no idea the problem existed when she bought her home.

Andy Kilheffer, a 58-year-old licensed plumber who lives at High Meadows, said the problem comes and goes.

"It can happen once a day, five times a day — you never know when, you never know how," he said. "It's not something we are doing. You just turn on the spigot and there it will be."

In 2012, a state Supreme Court justice agreed. Justice Christine Sproat ruled High Meadows breached its "warrant of habitability" and that Cacioppo was entitled to a 60 percent abatement of her rent retroactive for five years. The two sides are back in court over unpaid fees since that ruling.

The Dutchess County Department of Health acknowledges there have been problems in the past. In 2012, tests showed levels of iron and manganese above the state-mandated maximum-contaminant levels. Studies have suggested that long-term exposure to high levels of manganese can lead to neurological impairments, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

After those results, the Health Department required the water company to add hydrants to the distribution system to allow for regular flushing.

The board said the additional flushing valves would cost $34,000, or about $189 per lot, spread over four quarterly payments. Construction was completed in September.

In addition, some wells that fed the system were taken offline due to low flow or high levels of iron and manganese, said Tanya Clark, director of environmental health services for the Health Department.

"The flushing has been proposed to help remove any iron and manganese that was introduced to the distribution system from wells that are no longer in use," Clark wrote in response to the Poughkeepsie Journal.

In addition to the flushing protocol, Clark said, the county mandated the system conduct random sampling monthly of homes in the development.

As of February, 61 samples had been taken and six found elevated iron and manganese levels, Clark said.

"Those locations received additional investigation by (High Meadows Park Inc.) and have been addressed by flushing of the service line or interior plumbing," Clark wrote.

Clark indicated the results from the sample monitoring have been "encouraging" and are allowing operators to identify and address areas still experiencing elevated iron and manganese levels.

"We can't predict how long this will take, but continued sampling allows us to monitor the impact flushing has in maintaining water quality," she wrote. "So far, results are promising."

However, the flushing protocol has created a new problem. The system occasionally runs dry, and water has to be trucked in from other sources.

"The system must carefully manage the balance between the number of flushings with the ability of the wells to produce enough water for customer use and the water quality results of the system," Clark wrote.

Cacioppo and some other residents think the system needs to be upgraded, not just flushed. Kilheffer thinks the wells are introducing iron and manganese into the system at levels that don't fail when tested at the source but that build up within the distribution system over time.

"The only solution is to put in a new water system," Kilheffer said. "We want (the board) to look into grants. There are grants that would take care of this thing."

One source of such grants could be the state Environmental Facilities Corp.'s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, said Bridget Barclay, executive director of the Dutchess County Water and Wastewater Authority, which has no oversight of High Meadows.

"They do fund improvements to private systems," Barclay said.

In the meantime, Cacioppo and others face frequent filter changes and water that sometimes turns black.